Build’s Name: Yala, Mera, Kala
Operating System: Proxmox
CPU: AMD EPYC 3251
Motherboard: Supermicro M11SDV-8C-LN4F build
Chassis: NZXT H210 mini-itx
Drives: Toshiba 1TB NVMe M.2 80mm
RAM: 64GB DDR4 ECC
Power Supply: Various
Other Bits: High-end wire ties suspending direct CPU cooling fan
New to the forum. I know there was some interest in the Supermicro M11SDV-8C-LN4F and I just built 3 of theses. Pretty neat system and I'm really liking it so far.
For background, I run a small nonprofit workforce development program for people with disabilities. I suspended our in-person services on March 10th due to Covid. Since I did not want to leave our people hanging with nothing to do and any gap in services, for any student that is a really bad thing, so we rapidly converted to VTC/Zoom. Since we did a lot of hands-on work in our Computer Technician Training, it has been an interesting process (I've literally worked every day since late March except 1) figuring out what we are doing, while we were doing it.
In any case, we rely on remote access now for staff and students - we use a lot of virtualization to practice networking, drive imaging and all that good stuff. I have private access to our facility and we had an existing dedicated gb ISP so I basically turned our school into a data center. Unfortunately, I discovered that our collection of circa 2013 gear does not put up with the demands of that at all.
I needed systems that could support a fair number of VMs that mainly do not do any actual work and do it fairly cheaply. Something fairly quiet, low power consumption, easy to handle. In searching for some answers, I came across some builds based on this Supermicro board and that led me to STH's review. These boards seemed to be disappearing from Amazon and I needed to move quickly, so I picked up 3 and here we are now. I can't say my decision-making was impeccable (ha) but anyway, seems like it's working out. You're probably thinking that a used server would have been a better bet and maybe that would be true but I've been down that road I've never been quite happy. I have a rack actually but I would potentially be encountering other people to use it and I can't tell you how paranoid I am about that.
This is the first time I have used a proper IPMI, virtual KVM and I'm in love with that.
One thing I really like to do is show the students our IT infrastructure and the things that I do to maintain it. So I put together this quick Google Slides presentation to show them. So if you are interested you can check it out.
Operating System: Proxmox
CPU: AMD EPYC 3251
Motherboard: Supermicro M11SDV-8C-LN4F build
Chassis: NZXT H210 mini-itx
Drives: Toshiba 1TB NVMe M.2 80mm
RAM: 64GB DDR4 ECC
Power Supply: Various
Other Bits: High-end wire ties suspending direct CPU cooling fan
New to the forum. I know there was some interest in the Supermicro M11SDV-8C-LN4F and I just built 3 of theses. Pretty neat system and I'm really liking it so far.
For background, I run a small nonprofit workforce development program for people with disabilities. I suspended our in-person services on March 10th due to Covid. Since I did not want to leave our people hanging with nothing to do and any gap in services, for any student that is a really bad thing, so we rapidly converted to VTC/Zoom. Since we did a lot of hands-on work in our Computer Technician Training, it has been an interesting process (I've literally worked every day since late March except 1) figuring out what we are doing, while we were doing it.
In any case, we rely on remote access now for staff and students - we use a lot of virtualization to practice networking, drive imaging and all that good stuff. I have private access to our facility and we had an existing dedicated gb ISP so I basically turned our school into a data center. Unfortunately, I discovered that our collection of circa 2013 gear does not put up with the demands of that at all.
I needed systems that could support a fair number of VMs that mainly do not do any actual work and do it fairly cheaply. Something fairly quiet, low power consumption, easy to handle. In searching for some answers, I came across some builds based on this Supermicro board and that led me to STH's review. These boards seemed to be disappearing from Amazon and I needed to move quickly, so I picked up 3 and here we are now. I can't say my decision-making was impeccable (ha) but anyway, seems like it's working out. You're probably thinking that a used server would have been a better bet and maybe that would be true but I've been down that road I've never been quite happy. I have a rack actually but I would potentially be encountering other people to use it and I can't tell you how paranoid I am about that.
This is the first time I have used a proper IPMI, virtual KVM and I'm in love with that.
One thing I really like to do is show the students our IT infrastructure and the things that I do to maintain it. So I put together this quick Google Slides presentation to show them. So if you are interested you can check it out.